


Stitches

by avoidfilledwithcelluloid



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: And violence, Evil Al, Evil Sam, Gen, lots of blood and swearing, ooooooooooooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:03:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6626191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoidfilledwithcelluloid/pseuds/avoidfilledwithcelluloid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evil leapers Sam and Al get in a bar fight that results in Sam getting a big ol' cut on his back. Evil Al has to sew it upppp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BJackson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BJackson/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Withdrawal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6264142) by [BJackson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BJackson/pseuds/BJackson). 



> i wanted to play in allison's sandbox so i did. she said it was okay. now i get to make the evil leaper babies super angsty and sort of gay.
> 
> hope y'all like it?????

The blood on Sam's fingers was gummy, almost sticky on his fingers. He pressed his index and thumb together again and again, just waiting for Al to come back from the bathroom. His back felt like a scream that stung to the point of burning. 

_ You've had worse,  _ he told himself.  _ You've had worse. _

The sink was on in the bathroom. It made a high sliding sound and Sam heard Al mumbling to himself. Al talked to himself often, enough that Sam could pick out his moods from the tone of Al’s whispers to his own chest. Now Al sounded like he was tired: bone tired Al would have said. Sam moved on the bed to uncross his legs but despite his careful movement a little more blood dribbled out of his wound. 

“Quit moving so much,” Al said as he emerged from the bathroom with the door slamming shut behind him. “Didn't your mom tell you good boys sit still?”

Sam didn't respond. Instead, he reached down and curled his fingers on the edge of the bed. The bed rippled when Al sat down next to Sam. One finger trailed down the edge of Sam’s cut, barely brushing the exposed skin. Even without the touch skating into painful territory Sam flinched at the contact. Sam always flinched when Al touched him. Touching was too much. Being near each other was too much. Parts of Sam were empty of trust and those parts begged him to jerk away, to keep his body to himself.

“He got you good, huh?” Al took his hand away and Sam heard the pop of the first aid tin opening. 

“He surprised me,” Sam said. “That's all.”

Lothos had sent them on a simple mission: start a bar fight and get one Dustin Miller to kill a man. They had started a bar fight but Dustin Miller hadn’t killed anyone. Sam felt the failure not only on his back, but in his mouth. He could taste how badly he’d fucked up their mission. 

“Alright,” Al said in a tone that belied his disbelief. “Well, I'm gonna sew this up before Zoey gets her ass back here. Can guarantee she won't be happy about this fuck up.”

“Don't fucking touch me with that needle!” Sam said, reaching over to shove Al away. His hand left a stain on Al's silver shirt but the red got lost in the rest of the blood. The fabric was soaked in it. “I'll, I'll do it myself.”

“Fine,” Al held his hands up and put on a patronizing expression. “Die on the bed. Get yourself leapt back. I'm sure Zoey would  _ love  _ to rub salt in that wound. In both meanings of the phrase.”

Sam squirmed on the mattress and Al unscrewed the cap off a bottle of vodka. He took a long swig and offered it to Sam.

“You should have a drink,” he said. “That's a big cut and I ain't that good with needlepoint.”

Tugging the vodka out of Al's hand, Sam took hold of the neck and tipped his head back. The alcohol went down stinging but Sam kept drinking until his throat flexed in discomfort.

When he came back up, Al was staring. Sometimes he did that. The look in his eyes was like he expected a different person to be next to him: a person who was maybe softer, maybe more cruel because of the kindness there. 

“You good?” he asked. 

Sam was hunched over like an animal trying to protect its belly. With one hand he touched the inside of the cut and hissed. Contact created a scream in his throat. Sam swallowed it.

“Okay,” he said and turned so his back faced Al. “Don't fuck up.”

“Would I ever hurt you?” Al said with a grin evident in his tone. The next thing Sam felt was the rush of vodka against his wound. It stung like a million pin pricks and dislodged the scream from his throat.

“Fuck!” Sam thrashed on the bed, making the first aid kit fall to the ground. While the dull thumps of bandage rolls in his periphery Sam kept shaking through shouts and wrapped his arms around himself. In a short scramble, he crawled up the bed away from Al. His fingers clenched against his skin. Al didn't smile but reached for Sam.

“Don't you fucking touch me,” Sam said. He thought about the knife he had hidden under the bed. Al probably had one there too. The thought of the knife stabbed into Al's chest sat warm and comforting in his head.

“Calm down.”

“I'm going to kill you,” Sam lurched forward and then winced, pain shooting from his back. Al got off the bed and picked up the needle.

“The alcohol,” he said, “was just to disinfect the wound. I'm not pulling any tricks right now. Swear on my mother's grave.”

“You hate your mother,” Sam mumbled to his chest. He refused to look Al in the eye but still heard him laugh.

“You got me,” Al huffed out through another laugh. “How about my sisters grave? That work for you?”

Sam didn't remember when he had begun to know Al. Progression in their relationship came as a surprise to him. When had Sam started to know who Al loved? His gaze flicked upward and stared at Al's throat. He pretended he could see it cut in a straight red line. He couldn't pretend very well when confronted by the smooth wholeness of Al's skin.

“Okay,” Sam said, slowly unfurling himself. He turned his back toward Al and contained a flick as Al touched his finger to his skin. Al took thread out of the first aid tin and spun out a long length of it. Sam heard him snap off the thread with his teeth. 

“Fucking hard to thread needles,” Al said more to himself than Sam. “Can't see shit. Can't fucking, ya know, thread anything.”

There was a benign press of the needle and then Sam hissed. The point bit into his skin and then slid out, then in and then out again. A steady repetition built up into numbness until Sam barely felt the sting of Al's stitching. Sam muscles were tight; the yield of his own skin made him feel defensive. 

Sam could not remember what had gone wrong in the bar. He had made the right comments to the patrons, wound them up with carefully planted suggestions of their cowardice. Smoke had covered the whole room but Sam remembered how he saw Al move around the room. Short and quick like a rabbit trying to go through grass without making a sound, Al flickered around from person to person. He bumped his shoulders against them, growled when they spit at him and found Miller sulking in a corner. 

Back in the present, Al tugged the thread hard. Sam grit his teeth.

“Just making sure you’re still here,” Al sounded amused and then tugged again.

“Just fucking finish,” Sam said.

Al had started talking to Miller while leaned against the wall. His focus was on Miller, eyes never straying from his face. There was the hint of a smirk evident while Al spoke, his mouth sliding upward with every word. Sam remembered feeling spiteful over the closeness of Al and their target but chalked the feeling up to wanting the glory of completing the mission himself. Al said something low and Miller's head jerked to attention with eyes blazing. Sam recognized his cue and grabbed the shoulder of the man next to him to pull him down. With one punch he bloodied the man’s nose and knocked him to the floor. The rest of the bar erupted in shouts and clamoring to be the next to deck their fellow patrons. Sam had looked up and caught Al's gaze. Al  winked at him.

Then a knife was sliding down his back. Sam had screamed, the sound lost in the uproar. Miller shoved him to the ground and placed a well aimed kick into Sam's stomach. A rush of bile rose in Sam's throat but Miller didn't repeat the gesture. Instead he spit onto the floor next to Sam.

“Should cut your fucking tongue out,” Miller held the knife like he wanted to stab Sam again. “Little fucking pussy. Better stay down.”

Sam spit out the taste of the acid in his throat and watched Miller walk away out the door. Failed: he had failed the mission. Already the sound of Zoey cackling was swarming his thoughts, the sound of chains clicking together before she hit him. 

_ You've had worse,  _ he told himself.  _ You've had worse fucker. Don't let this hurt you. You're fine. _

Behind him, Sam had heard the scuffle of feet. A hand curled around his bicep and without looking he knew it was Al. The grooves his rings made on Sam's arm gave him away. 

“Jesus,” Al said. “Fuck. What the fuck did you do?”

“Don't touch me,” Sam mumbled to the floor. “Get away from me.”

“Can’t,” Al had started to pull Sam up from the floor. He tucked his hands under Sam’s armpits and brought him up against his chest to steady Sam. “I’m obligated to make sure you don’t die here. Lothos wouldn’t like losing his favorite chew toy.”

“Shut up,” Sam bit out at Al. He knew the blood from his back was leaking onto Al’s shirt. The knowledge made Sam’s brain buzz happily. “Shut up. You fucking knew he was going to attack me. You probably told him to.”

Al’s fingers dug hard into the meat of Sam’s upper arm for a moment and then relaxed.

“Don’t put all your hate in one basket kiddo,” he said. “I’m not living everyday just to fuck with you.”

“Yeah you are,” Sam slurred, his head going a little higher in the clouds with every breath he took. Air came in and out of his lungs in disordered gasps as though it were coming through a busted sewer line. “Yeah you are. You are, so just say it. Say it!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Al said as he dragged Sam out of the bar. The riot was stronger now and blurred with Sam’s vision. There was only the clash of reds, blues and beer across his gaze. “You need to shut up and bleed like a good little asshole.”

“Say you hate me!” Sam started to claw at Al’s hand. “Say it or I’ll kill myself right now! I’ll crack my head open on the floor. I’ll do it!”

In the hotel room Sam thought about Al throwing him down on the sticky bar floor. He thought about Al leaning into his face and telling him to do it. To go ahead and off himself. 

“Do it Beckett,” Al had spit. “Make my fucking week.”

Behind him, in the real world,  Al hummed and smoothed his hand over the finished stitches on Sam’s back. 

“What did you say to Miller?” Sam asked. Al’s hand paused, rubbing on the ridges of the already scarring flesh. 

“I told him you had fucked his sister,” he said in flat voice. “And you were talking about how you fucked her raw.”

Sam opened his mouth to ask why but didn’t. He wasn’t interested in why Al did anything.

“He was pissed off the minute I mentioned his sister,” Al said and started to rub his thumb into Sam’s back. “I bet he’ll kill her tonight.”

“So we did the mission?”

“Maybe,” Al tsked when Sam twitched. “He could just beat her up. But I did the mission. You just got stabbed.”

“I get partial credit for bleeding,” Sam said.

“Don’t count on it,” Al took his hand away. “You should lay down on your front. That’ll start to scab over soon and you’re better off sleeping through that process.”

Sam laid down, Al's hand still on his back, and more than anything he wanted to say  _ Stop. Don't be gentle. The gentleness hurts worse. _

Al's thumb traced the line of Sam's wound and then he dug his finger into the stitches. Sam let out an animal scream, low and rumbling into the pillow as Al's fingernail gouged itself in his skin.

“Sleep tight,” Al said and released Sam. The bed bounced as Al got up and Sam heard him go back to the bathroom. Sleep crawled its way over Sam while he listened as Al talked to himself in the bathroom, repeating his words over and over like a prayer to no one. 

 


End file.
